I went to the Portage Theater last night (I’m going back tonight) to catch back-to-back versions of The Thing. The 50’s version pits the mad scientist - advocating a gushing, scientistic approach to dealing with the alien- against an airforce pilot who immediately recognizes the levity of the situation and deals with it accordingly. Instead of listening to the Nobel prize winner and trying to reason with the creature, he firebombs the shit out of it. An ironic solution for a script that repeatedly associates the scientist with the horrors of the atomic bomb. You can guess who gets the girl in the end, right? Ef you, science.
The blanker (although much more entertaining) Carpenter re-make offers little in way of character development, as the primary conflict is actually between the alien and the humans. On the other hand, it is much more entertaining, and gives us one of the seminal badasses in sci-fi/horror film history: R.J. FUCKING MacReady.
Kurt Russell’s character has absolutely no interest whatsoever in… well… anything, really. Except drinking. It could be argued that his survival in this film is primarily due to the copious amounts of J&D that he consumes, instead of over-thinking every situation and becoming a paranoid psychopath like the rest of his co-workers. The bottom line is that if you haven’t seen either of these movies, now is the time to rent them.
Best scene in the Carpenter re-make is embedded below. Poor pup.
This is how I feel this holiday season. This clip shows the ups and downs of having a name like “Rusty” and spening long periods of time in a library. If only I could dance like Anthony Michael Hall.
EDIT:
2009 New Year’s Rsolution: Not only learn to dance as well as Anthony Michael Hall, but grow up to look as badass as Anthony Michael Hall.
On Milwaukee just North of Irving Park. A full block of every costume and prop you will ever need for Halloween. Open 24/7 until the holiday! I bought my costume tonight. Hint: “rawr!”
I’ve always been interested in the later parts of the canon, and so for the holiday this year I decided to combine a few clips from Granada’s re-imagining of “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” and set it to a Behemoth song. iMovie ‘08 is possibly the most useless software of all time (re-install ‘06 if you want to do anything even remotely interesting with editing), but I did what I could. The result is simply a reflection on Holmes’ view of superstition, I suppose. I don’t think people give Conan Doyle enough credit for Casebook, despite his odd obsession with the supernatural during his later years. Happy Halloween!
One of the first large metal shows I went to after I moved out here was Amon Amarth at House of Blues. Since then I have been counting down the days to their mighty return (almost exactly a year), and this time supported by great bands like Ensiferum and Belphegor. Finally. I headed down a bit early to pre-game in the lounge downstairs with Cap, but it wasn’t long until the music started upstairs. Most of these larger HOB metal shows are characterized by a real diversity of sub-genres, which usually makes for an interesting night. The Absence are a band from Florida that I had never heard of, but they had a surprising thrash / Gothenburg sound that was pretty impressive. Troy was more familiar with Belphagor, who had a blacker feel about them, mixed with some death. Ensiferum I knew very well, a folk metal band who have a goofier sound that goes well with their fantasy themed lyrics. They even played Tale of Revenge, which is the official anthem of my morning commute. Finally, Amon Amarth were just brutal as hell. They’ve come to represent everything that is interesting and entertaining about viking metal, and they didn’t disappoint.
After the show we headed over to Harry Caray’s, a restaurant that is the total opposite of how it presents itself from the outside. When we saw that the tables had multiple forks and the menu had $40 entrees, we took off down the street to get a burger. Finally we headed over to Neo for “Metal Monday”. All in all a pretty epic evening, all things considered. Not a bad start to the week.
the best birthday ever. Highlights included my mom’s art show in Chicago Heights, brunch at Hot Chocolate, and a great architectural tour on the Chicago River. Oh, and sushi!
